A Simple Fix To Take Control of Your Time and Boost Your Productivity
“The difference between technology and slavery is that slaves are fully aware that they are not free.”
― Nassim Nicholas Taleb
One of my favorite scenes from the movie Up is when Carl and Russel first meet Dug, the talking dog. As Dug regales Carl and Russel with his magical greetings, he stops mid-sentence, spins his head sharply to the left, and shouts, “Squirrel!” Everything pauses for a few seconds, and then Dug spins his head back to Carl and resumes talking like nothing happened. Literally, like the pause never occurred.
Pay close attention the next time you’re at lunch with a friend. You and he will do the same thing, but with your smartphone or watch. You’ll be mid-sentence, feel the buzz, grab the phone, answer the text message or respond to the comment, and then attempt to pick up the conversation right where you left it (but you can’t, right?).
What the heck just happened?
We are Dug, and the dings and buzzes are squirrels. We let this happen so often that we rarely even recognize it at this point. I’ve been on the receiving end, and I’ve also been the perpetrator. I’ve even done it in front of a room full of people. I’ve been standing in front leading a discussion, my phone blips, and I steal a quick glance at it — in front of the room with everyone watching.
What is wrong with me?
In fact, there’s nothing (egregiously) wrong with me. I’m not unusual or extraordinarily undisciplined, and neither are you.
Our Pavlovian response to notifications is 100% contrived by The World, and your inability to not react is killing your productivity.
The World is in Control
The World is a merchant hocking its wares, and it’s exceptional at what it does. The commodity that The World hocks is attention, and the bait is these incessant notifications. The more you give up control of your attention, the more rewards The World reaps.
The World is extracting your attention in exchange for productivity through it’s weapons of mass destruction — your smart devices.
The more you give in to The World’s schedule, the less you get done.
The Dopamine Distraction Generator
The World understands that we’re neurologically wired on two levels to react to these notifications. On the first level, the alert shuts off the brain function that regulates higher-level cognition (i.e., conversation, thinking, etc.), which forces the brain to send emergency signals to the body. The alert interrupts your normal thinking, similar to when an existential threat presents itself.
The second level is the reward you receive for responding. When the phone blips and you look at it, you receive a little dopamine hit that sends a rush of gratification, just like love, or winning on a slot machine, or eating your favorite dessert.
Our brains are literally slaves to these notifications. Neither I, nor you, nor monks, nor Navy Seals have enough inner discipline to ignore those notifications because we’re wired to love them. We crave the buzz.
Someone might like me.
Someone might need me.
Someone might want my help.
Someone might have a better proposal than what I’m currently doing.
You can’t help it, neither can I.
The Multitasking Myth
That little interruption, the signal to your brain that something else needs attention, has now created the problem that destroys your productivity — the context switch.
When you attend to your device’s notification, you’ve lost the current thread of discussion, thinking, or creating because you cannot cognitively multitask in this way. Brain anatomy trumps you again.
Each time you context switch, you’ve ruined your flow, and hence your productivity goes out the window. That’s why you can’t pick up that conversation exactly as you left it.
But you already know this — intellectually.
Awareness Steps In
The first step was admitting I have a problem.
“Hi, my name is John, and I’m addicted to notifications on my devices.”
However, through a combination of awareness and conducting personal experiments, here’s what I’ve realized:
- I don’t need to know in real-time that someone liked or commented on my post/tweet.
- I NEVER need to know when “breaking news” occurs (The news and especially insidious “breaking news” is a whole other topic).
- I don’t need to know the very second that my favorite team made a trade.
- I don’t need to know right now that a new email message arrived.
- I don’t need to care that the 15% discount is about to expire or that I now have access to a good deal.
- I never need to know instantly about an “urgent” message from my son’s school.
- I never need to know when Amazon delivers the package.
- I certainly don’t need to know that CandyCrusher1467 just beat my high score.
- I rarely need to know that a new text or DM arrived.
I’ve boiled down worthy interruptions to the following:
- A call or text from my inner circle.
- A call or text from someone I’m meeting or with whom I’ve made plans.
- Calendar events and reminders.
- When the Uber driver or Door Dash delivery has arrived.
- Call or Slack (Teams, Skype, etc) message from my colleagues during working hours (NOT emails).
That’s it. The rest is noise.
The Simple Solution — Focus on What You Can Control
One simple albeit draconian solution is to turn off all of your devices, but we’re not gonna do that are we? We live in a world where these devices provide real value and are likely necessary to do our work.
The simple yet realistic solution is to decide to take control, let go of that which doesn’t matter, and focus on what does matter. It will require a little discipline — the discipline to configure your devices, specifically the notifications on your devices, such that you are in control of your life, not your device.
Here’s what I’ve done, and my life is significantly more productive and enjoyable.
- Take the watch off. I found that my watch was THE biggest distractor of all — constantly blipping and buzzing and demanding attention. Plus, the Do Not Disturb configuration was never good enough. I use my watch for tracking exercise and other activities, so I put it on when I do those activities and take it off when I’m done. If I want to wear a watch all the time, I’ll wear a dumb one.
- Turn off all email notifications, including work email notifications on my phone(s) and computer(s). Email isn’t real-time, was never meant to be real-time, is a terrible conversation tool, and at least 75% of the emails I receive are useless. I’ve stopped letting it control my time. Instead, I batch process emails one or two times a day when I’m ready.
- I’ve turned off all social media, social DMs, WordPress, news, shopping, and game app notifications. Forever. Enough said. I look at social media on my time, not on The World’s.
- I use Do Not Disturb mode on my phone and laptop whenever I am: needing to focus/create, in a meeting, at lunch with a friend, at the gym (or out on the bike, etc.), eating a meal with my family, reading a book, driving, sitting on the can, spending time with your spouse, etc.
- Never put my phone on the table when eating with others or when in a meeting. Not face up, nor face down. I leave it put away.
The point of turning off notifications is not that I will totally ignore these messages and applications. If you send me an email, I will respond (just not in real-time). It’s so I can control my own time, and hence, my own productivity.
Technology is a good servant but a horrible master. Yet, so many of us walk around a slave to the device in our hands.
This is me taking control. You can do the same.
